Slashdot Mirror
Fortune Takes a Look at Bram Cohen
jackstack writes "Fortune has an interesting article about bittorrent creator Bram Cohen. 'Right now I'm the CEO because I don't trust anyone else to be the CEO,' Bram says. The article goes into some interesting detail about Bram's state of mind, his poor history in college, and gives a glimpse of what it's like to go from being an unknown, brilliant geek - to the CEO of an $8.75 Million startup company."
Bandwidth costs money, and offering, say, Linux ISO's is expensive. But, if people opt in (BitTorrent) each person is joining a community and helping out with the cost of bandwidth - especially those who are accessing via an ISP and not through work.
It's the same level of cooperation that makes OSS so special.
I may be a good way to share files, but I'm afraid the investors are throwing their money away. It's like trying to make money off of FTP.
How can this company be worth 8.75 million. What does it do that is worth that much a year? As far as I can see nothing. The only "product" it has it gives away for free. If it started charging a dozen open source versions would appear in it's place. Even if they didn't the system can be copied by others for virtually nothing. What is it with these really high value estimations?
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Why should he hand over his title to some facist punk that will bank on his hard earned work. He's the brilliant guy that came up with this, he should run the company as he sees fits. Sometimes it's not about profit, but about ideals and vision.
Life is not for the lazy.
The job of a CEO is to provide direction and strategy for an organization. I would say that maybe he needs a PR person. He seems to be doing quite well as the CEO.
The other thing that has me thinking - who diagnosed his illness?
I've met quite a few people who said that they had various illnesses. When I asked them about the diagnosis and what the physician (or some other qualified expert) said, they don't say anything about an expert diagnosis: just something vague. I don't know about him, but I think a lot of folks use popular illnesses as an excuse for their own shortcomings or as an excuse for not doing something that they're not interested in doing.
Forgive my spelling, but I have spellexia.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
there's always been smart people who can do complex topological analysis in their head but can't balance their checkbook
likewise, there have always been people whose minds always flit from one subject to the next every second- in other words, attention deficit disorder
but now we have these buzzwords, asperpgers and ADD and others, and people think its some miraculous discovery, and its all they talk about and they act like it explains all sorts of behavior
but it's just a fad, and meanwhile, the conditions have always been there, always will be there, and those who have these conditions are no more special or less special than the rest of us
cohen is a smart guy, and he can concentrate on a complex math problem, and he likes to do it, that's all, that's it
i'm just so sick of everyone jumping on the buzzword bandwagon, it doesn't mean anything
there once was a time in the 1800s when everyone thought phrenology was the end-all explanation of character and intelligence
it's long forgotten, like the racist pseudoscience it was
meanwhile, in a hundred years, when our language and our attention isn't controlled by the marketing department of large pharmaceutical companies, our hypochondriacal way of looking at our mental differences will have moved onto the next stupid fad
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I mean, after all, anybody can set up a Web site. How could a company possibly make money doing that??
Breakfast served all day!
As a founder of a funded startup myself I hope he suceeds, but statistically he won't. Maybe i'm alone here, but i'm having a hardtime envisioning the business model of such a company (and doubt his ability to lead it to profitability). Sure bittorrent is a neat technology: but its just that a technology, and an open one too. It appears to be a long shot, and thats why funding came from venture capitalists. From most slashdotters POV i'm sure that sounds awesome until you realize what accepting venture capital is typically about: 90%+ stock takeovers with rider clauses allowing the investment firm first dibs on any money withdrawn from the company. I hope he hires someone to run the company that can translate whatever products he comes up with into something that can actually be sold.
if sign.nil? Sig.new
Sometimes fame outweighs charisma. If Linus hadn't invented linux, do you honestly think he would be a spokesperson for Transmetia?
For a while, whenever a similar story would come up - there would be a myriad of posts ala "I like technology and am socially awkward, therefore I must have Aspergers!".
Why would they make the claim? Probably it gives them an "excuse". It's no longer "their fault" that they're clueless when talking to people.
Of course one post on Slashdot does not equate to seeking out and joining one of your groups. I have no doubt that your claim is true.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
"In mid-October, Apple unveiled its long-rumored video iPod and started making some TV downloads and Pixar shorts available through its popular iTunes service. Navin says that the Google and Apple moves are both competition, but that BitTorrent's market will offer much more than just movies and TV shows. Plus, he speculates that Apple is paying "an astronomical price for bandwidth."
For anyone big, bandwidth becomes more and more of a non-issue. Only the little guys actually pay a significant amount for it.
Having worked for a web hosting company that went from small, averaging only 50mbits/sec in total, to over 800mbits/sec their overall bandwidth costs actually went DOWN. Why? Because once they started pushing over 100-200mbits/sec they could sign free, or next to free peering agreements with major Tier 1 providers. As long as you don't piss them off, and the agreement continues to be mutually benficial you get "free" bandwidth.
I'm sure Apple and any other big players pay fractions of a cent on the dollar for bandwidth.
I still believe Cohen's company can help out the little guys sell their wares, at least until they push enough bandwidth that it becomes cheaper to host the content themselves. I doubt you'll ever see Apple or the MPAA paying him money to host content though.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a